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Want to Volunteer in Schools? Be Ready for a Security Check

In more innocent times, mothers visited schools to bake brownies with kindergartners, fathers chaperoned field trips, grandfathers came in to help 6-year-olds learn to read, and no one gave it a second thought.

But in these complicated, nervous days, a growing number of school districts nationwide are adopting rigorous security policies for parents and others who want to volunteer.

Take Rio Rancho, N.M., a district just outside Albuquerque. Under a policy adopted last year, parents who want to mentor in the schools must produce character references and go through a criminal background check, fingerprinting and training.

In Charlotte, N.C., parents or other volunteers who accompany field trips, tutor or serve as reading buddies or assistant athletic coaches, and may be alone with a child, must go though a personal interview, a training session and a criminal background check. They must also provide three personal references. Those who mentor children or chaperon overnight trips must be fingerprinted, and those who drive children around must have their driving history, insurance and license checked.

In the jittery atmosphere after Sept. 11, 2001, and the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, school boards and parent groups have become eager to take all possible measures to protect children. And it is not just schools that have become more security conscious. Little League programs, Boys and Girls Clubs, scout groups, the Catholic Church and even some Red Cross chapters now run criminal background checks on at least some volunteers. In recent months, for example, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson in New Jersey has begun fingerprinting all volunteers who have contact with children.

''If it dissuades one creepy pedophile-type person from entering a classroom, then it's worthwhile,'' said Kristina Hannum, the mother of a first grader, who volunteers in the Charlotte schools.

In district after district, parents use almost the same words. In this day and age, they say, children need all the protection they can get. ''You can't be too safe when it comes to people being in contact with kids,'' said Ray Ortega, who comes to Colinas del Norte Elementary School in Rio Rancho each week to mentor a 10-year-old immigrant from Mexico.

But not everyone is so comfortable with such policies, and in some districts the issue has set parents against parents. Those who object cite privacy concerns, seeing the measures as intrusive and far likelier to find a decades-old arrest for marijuana possession or fishing without a license than anything relevant to a parent's current fitness to interact with children.

There are no good statistics about how many districts require screening, or how many potential volunteers have been rejected, but education experts say there is a clear trend toward tighter security.

In Olympia, Wash., the school district is considering new security measures over the objections of David Price, a parent who is an anthropology professor at St. Martin's College.

''I've had people say to me, 'Why do you care, what do you have to hide?' '' Mr. Price said. ''I've just finished a book on McCarthyism, and I know how these chills work. The fact that only a few people stand up against something doesn't mean everyone else is comfortable with it.''

''But my biggest concern isn't the civil liberties problem,'' he continued. ''It's that background checks would keep so many poor parents away from their kids' schools. We know a lot about the importance of parental involvement in anchoring low-income kids in school. When poor kids see their parents in school, they trust the place, and their academic careers take off.''

Mr. Price, who spent years interviewing low-income parents in his area as an evaluator for a family literacy program, said he was struck by the fragility of their connection to schools. He remembers one father who was looking forward to bonding with his son on an overnight trip, but ended up not going for fear that a background check would turn up his arrest record.

Mr. Price says he heard that his district was planning tighter security policies at the first P.T.A. meeting of the fall. But for now, the Olympia schools are going slowly. So last month, there was no screening when Mr. Price's wife, Midge, accompanied their daughter's class on a field trip to a performance at a downtown theater. Ken Benny, Olympia's deputy schools superintendent, said a committee considering the issue would present its recommendations to the board later this month.

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Districts that do background checks say they see no sign that parents are being scared away. And a few districts have different procedures for parents than for other members of the community.

''If you're a parent coming into your kid's class, that's one thing, but if you're an outsider we're going to ask more questions,'' said a spokesman for the Baltimore County Schools, where community members, but not parents, are asked to provide three personal references.

There are few, if any, known incidents of parent volunteers abusing children, compared with many involving teachers or principals, who have gone through extensive screening. So some parents say spending the money on background checks and fingerprinting -- as much as $100 a person, sometimes paid by the district or the local police, sometimes by the volunteer -- is a waste of resources.

In the New York City schools, Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the policy was to keep volunteers from being alone with a child.

The Nevada Parent-Teacher Association has taken a stand against fingerprinting and background checks, maintaining that it hinders parents' involvement in the schools, and, further, that any problems could better be prevented by ensuring that volunteers are not left alone with children.

''In Nevada, there has not yet been a reported incident of a volunteer molesting or assaulting a child at school, while there have been problems with teachers, who are fingerprinted and put through background checks,'' said D. J. Stutz, the president of the Nevada P.T.A.

There is no evidence that tighter screening of parent volunteers prevents problems.

''Does it keep kids safe?'' said Bill Modzeleski, director of the federal Education Department's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. ''We don't have enough research to tell.''

Many school officials, particularly those who have been through the fallout of a pedophile arrest in their town or in a nearby school, say they see background checks for volunteers as an important precaution, just like the legally required screening of teachers and other employees.

''If we're mandated to fingerprint our employees, and if there's any value in that, why would we ignore a volunteer who's tutoring a student one on one in a room?'' asked Dr. Charles Wilson, the superintendent of schools in Pelham, N.Y. ''Just recently, a Pelham resident was arrested on charges of pedophilia. We're not becoming fanatical, but this is not a far-fetched possibility. It's not something that couldn't happen here.''

Mr. Wilson's district is still feeling its way toward a decision on who should be fingerprinted and whether a formal written policy is needed.

In Pelham, the leading voice against fingerprinting has been Maryanne Joyce, a parent who has volunteered at her children's elementary school.

''Is this how we teach children the meaning of community, by fingerprinting and running criminal background checks on each other?'' Ms. Joyce asked in a letter to Pelham school officials. ''We are all searching for ways to best protect our children, but we think the proposed practice is unhelpful at best and harmful at worst. It is unlikely to really protect children, who might be better served if the money used to fingerprint their parents were used instead to teach them how to respond to or get out of situations in which adults act in inappropriate ways.''

Julie Underwood, general counsel of the National School Boards Association, said the issue was a tough one for school districts.

''Fingerprinting parents who want to be involved in the school may create a chilly environment, one where parents are discouraged from getting involved,'' Ms. Underwood said. ''But you do want to do what you can to keep children safe.''